First month in Pandemic Horde

It’s been a month since I joined
Pandemic Horde, and what an exciting month it’s been. Immediately after
joining PH at the end of December we line members started hearing about an
upcoming TEST Alliance campaign against our space. Which, incidentally,
started shortly afterward. Talk about
immediately getting thrown into the deep end of the pool. I basically went from not playing EVE for 3-4
years, to deciding to play again, to playing for a month and coming to the old
realization that playing in hisec with a small corp wasn’t enough for me, to
joining a very large nullsec corporation, to WAR WITH ANOTHER VERY LARGE
NULLSEC CORPORATION. And not a war in some far-off region, but one
literally on our doorstep that was having continuous impact throughout our
space.

Although Test’s official campaign
didn’t go well for them, ending after only a week of its official start, the
prior low-level hostilities continue to some degree. Smallish Test fleets
still do periodic roams through our gate system and surrounding space, but
there aren’t the great fleets and extended camping any longer. We’ve settled into skirmish raids that
usually get handled quickly by our standing fleet. Though the test roams
have subsided considerably within the last 7-10 days. There’s still activity going on in Kalevala,
however.

To some, this might have felt overwhelming,
but it’s exactly what I’ve wanted from EVE Online from day one. I wish I’d
gotten involved in Null space when I started playing in 2009, otherwise I’d
likely never have quit (repeatedly). My
brief foray into Null in 2010 notwithstanding.

There’s always something to do; always
fleets, whether for response actions, mining, roams, or battles like we had in Perimeter
last night. And if you don’t have
time for fleet activity, there’s plenty exploration, PI, industry, or ratting to
your hearts content, to keep you busy. I
suspect mileage may vary from the very large alliances, to the smaller ones. But from the perspective of a player who
wants to experience everything EVE has to offer, fleeing hisec was the wisest
choice I ever made.

Joining PH has to be the second. Not that I have a huge range of experience on the matter, but I can assure any new player interested, you won’t go wrong joining PH. The on boarding process couldn’t be easier, and there’s a host of caretakers who are there to take care of you while you grow. The culture in PH is great and is very inviting to new players. For that matter, even to older players who haven’t experienced Nullsec before.

So what have I been doing for the last month, exactly? My ability to join fleets is somewhat constrained by various responsibilities, so I’ve generally only been able to fleet up 2-3 times a week on average (not counting random response fleets). But even then I’ve already experienced more kills than I have in the previous 9 years combined. Even counting my FW alt I created back in 2012. But what I have had a lot of time to do is ratting. I say “a lot”, but I generally only spend 1-2 hours of ratting a day. Unfortunately my ratting this past month has gone entirely to building up my personal fleet of ships. Although I still need to buy a few more ships, I expect a majority of my ratting proceeds from here on will instead build my wallet.

I also activated my remaining accounts. I’m having too much fun playing EVE again not to. Outside of my main, I have my hisec hauler/market/industry character, a second hauler/market/industry character, a Cap pilot skilling up, and a FAX pilot skilling up. I plan on bringing everybody except my hisec hauler into PH within the coming weeks. All part of a plan to achieve goals I’ve had from early in my EVE playing experience, but wasn’t able to achieve previously. I want to grow within PH and PanFam, but I also want to build an industrial base to help me grow space rich! Cap pilot and Fax pilot to experience the truly big fleet battles I’ve marveled at for years, but which were always so far out of my reach.

It’ll be some weeks, to months yet before I have everything I plan on doing set in place. But I suspect by the time Summer rolls around, my industrial aspirations will be in full swing. My Cap pilot will also be fully trained and my Fax pilot will be significantly along in his training plan as well. When I started playing EVE again in early December I never thought for a moment that I’d think this. But EVE may supplant WoW as my main gaming pastime. In all the previous instances where I’ve played EVE, I’ve played for a few months before going back to WoW. But in every instance, I never thought EVE wasn’t a “momentary” thing. WoW had been my main game since early 2005, and while I’ve taken small breaks to play other games over the years, those breaks had always been short. But I feel completely different this time around. At least from the point when I joined PH. It’s not entirely that my disappointment with BFA is high, but more that I’m finally experiencing the true EVE Online. WoW will be the game I play infrequently moving forward, if I play at all. While EVE is the game I’m now spending virtually all of my gaming time playing. Anything can happen, but as I sit here today, I don’t see that changing any time soon.